Just as if Helene were not still pointing a gun at the broad elegance of his chest!
‘Lisette Duprée.’ She gave an abrupt curtsy, unable, now that she was standing so close to the gentleman, to look away from the intensity of that beautiful lavender gaze.
Christian repressed his smile of satisfaction at Helene Rousseau herself having effectively made the formal introductions possible. A formality that would allow him to more easily approach and speak to the lovely Lisette in future.
His gaze narrowed as he turned to look at the older woman. ‘Please do not let us delay you any further when you are so obviously needed in the kitchen, madame.’
Helene Rousseau’s mouth tightened even as she deftly stowed the pistol away in the folds of her gown. ‘You will remember all that I have said to you tonight, my lord.’ It was a warning, not a question.
Christian had every intention of remembering each and every word this woman spoke to him. Of dissecting it. Analysing it. In readiness for the report he would eventually take back with him to England.
And if it should transpire that Helene Rousseau was indeed behind the recent kidnapping of an innocent child, and the abduction and ill treatment of an equally innocent young lady, in order to try to blackmail information from the English government in the former, and repress information in the latter, then he feared there could be only one outcome to Helene Rousseau’s future.
An outcome that would result in the lovely Lisette being in mourning for both her aunt and her father.
‘I assure you, madame, my memory is impeccable,’ Christian answered Helene Rousseau softly.
The older woman gave him a long and warning stare before turning to Lisette, the hardness of her features softening slightly as she looked at the younger woman. ‘You must not linger here, Lisette, when there are customers needing to be served.’
‘As you say, Helene.’ Lisette’s dark auburn lashes were lowered demurely as her aunt gave Christian one last warning glance before departing with a swish of her skirts. In the direction of the kitchen, it was to be hoped.
Christian found it curious that the younger woman addressed the older one by her first name rather than as her tante. Adding to the mystery of this relationship, that no amount of watching and spying on both André Rousseau before the man’s death, and Helene Rousseau in the months since, had managed to discover, let alone explain.
‘Would you care to sit down and join me, mademoiselle?’ Christian held back one of the chairs at his table.
Lisette eyed him curiously. ‘I am at work, Comte, not leisure.’ And she would not have frequented a tavern such as this one even if she were.
Until just a few months ago, Lisette had lived all of her nineteen years in the French countryside, far away from any city, let alone Paris. It had been a shock for her to suddenly find herself living in such a place as this tavern, after the death of the couple she had believed to be her parents.
Believed to be her parents...
The truth of the matter had only emerged on the day of their funeral, when a carriage had arrived at their farm late that afternoon and a tall and haughty blonde woman had stepped down, a look of complete disdain on her face as she stepped carefully across the farmyard to the house.
Learning that this woman was actually her mother had been even more of a shock to Lisette than losing the couple she had believed to be her parents.
Helene Rousseau claimed Lisette had been fostered with the Duprées since she was a very young baby, and that they had been sent money every month for her upkeep.
Having never so much as set eyes on this woman before that day, Lisette had been disinclined to believe her at first. Although she could think of no reason why anyone would want to make such a false claim; Lisette was not rich, and even the Duprées’ farm had been left to their nephew rather than Lisette.
The reason for which had become obvious with the arrival of Helene Rousseau.
The older woman had clearly been prepared for Lisette’s disbelief and had brought letters with her that she had received every month from the Duprées, in relation to Lisette’s health and well-being.
It was the non-appearance of this month’s letter that had alerted Helene Rousseau to the fact that something was amiss on the Duprée farm; enquiries had informed her that both of the Duprées had died when a tree had fallen during a storm and landed on that part of the farmhouse where the Duprées’ bedchamber was situated.
Lisette had only needed to read three of those letters sent by the Duprées to Helene Rousseau to know that the older woman was telling the truth; Lisette was indeed the other woman’s illegitimate daughter.
What had followed still seemed like something of a dream to Lisette—or perhaps it might better be described as a nightmare?
Her belongings had all been quickly packed into a trunk—Helene Rousseau had disdained the idea of spending so much as a single night at the farm—after which Lisette had been bundled into the coach with the other woman before then travelling through the night to Paris.
If Helene Rousseau had found the sight and sounds of the farmyard unacceptable, then Lisette had been rendered numb by the noise and dirt of Paris as the carriage drove through the early morning streets.
Tradesmen were already about, hawking their wares amongst the people lying drunk in shop doors and alleyways, several overpainted and scantily dressed ladies slinking off into those same alleyways as the carriage passed by them.
The tavern Helene Rousseau owned and ran had been even more of a shock, situated as it was in one of the poorer areas of the city, with patrons to match.
It had been no hardship at all for Lisette to remain apart from such surroundings. To keep mainly in the bedchamber assigned to her by Helene—even all these weeks later Lisette could not think of the older woman as anything more than the woman who had given birth to her before then abandoning her for the next nineteen years. As far as Lisette was concerned, sending money for her daughter’s upkeep did not equate to love on Helene Rousseau’s part, only a sense of responsibility; the other woman had made no attempt in all of those years to actually see or speak with her daughter.
Given a choice, Lisette would not have travelled to Paris with Helene Rousseau at all. But she did not have a choice. How could she, when she had no money of her own, her foster parents were both dead and their nephew had made it clear that she could not continue to live on the farm once he had moved there with his wife and large family?
But within days of arriving in Paris, Lisette had come to hate it with a vengeance. It was smelly and dirty, and the people she occasionally met out in the streets or the tavern were not much better. And Helene Rousseau proved to be a cold and distant woman with whom Lisette had nothing in common but her birth.
There was also deep unrest still amongst the Parisian people, who had first had a king, then an emperor, then a king again, and then again an emperor, only for that emperor to then once again be deposed and their king returned to them.
Such things had not affected Lisette when she’d lived on the farm with the Duprées. There they had only been concerned with caring for the animals, and the setting of and then bringing in of the harvest each year.
But political intrigues seemed to abound in Paris, with neighbour speaking out against neighbour, often with dire consequences.
Lisette also strongly suspected there were meetings held in one of the private rooms above the tavern, in which that political unrest was avidly and passionately discussed. Meetings over which Helene Rousseau presided...
‘Then perhaps you might meet with me outside and join me for a late supper at my home when you have finished your work for the night...?’
Lisette’s eyes widened in shock as she looked up at the handsome gentleman who did not seem as if he should be in such a place as this lowly tavern at all, let alone asking one of
the serving women if she would meet him for supper.
No doubt he was one of those gentlemen the Duprées had warned her of when she’d reached her sixteenth birthday and had shown signs of developing a womanly figure. Gentlemen who gave not a care if they disgraced an innocent, before continuing merrily on their way.
‘I am afraid that will not be possible, Monsieur la Comte—’ She broke off as the lavender-eyed Comte stepped forward to prevent her from leaving. ‘I must return to my work, monsieur,’ she insisted firmly.
Christian found that he had no wish for Lisette to return to her work. Indeed, he discovered he was not favourably inclined to this young and beautiful woman working in this tavern at all.
It was a lowly, bawdy place, where he had just observed a man thrusting his hand down the low-cut bodice of a barmaid’s gown, before popping that breast out completely so that he might fondle and suckle a rosy nipple. Where in another shadowy corner of the tavern he could see another couple, the woman’s skirts pushed up to her waist, the man’s breeches unfastened, as the two of them actually fornicated in front of all who cared to watch.
Christian, for all his previous sins, most certainly did not care to view so unpleasant a sight.
Indeed, he had begun to find the whole atmosphere of this tavern to be overly lewd and oppressive.
And this delicate woman certainly did not belong in such a place, no matter what her biological connection to the patroness might be.
He curled his fingers lightly about the slenderness of Lisette’s arm. ‘I will be waiting outside in my carriage for you to join me from midnight onwards—’
‘I cannot, monsieur.’ Her eyes had filled with alarm. ‘Tonight or any other night.’
‘I mean you no harm, Lisette.’ Christian sighed his frustration with her obvious distrust. ‘You must know that you do not belong here?’
Tears now swam in those exquisite blue eyes. ‘I have nowhere else to go, monsieur.’
Rescuing an obvious damsel in distress was not part of Christian’s mission. Indeed, his superiors in government would say it was the opposite of his purpose here. Most especially when that damsel was the niece of the woman—and quite possibly the daughter of the rabble-rouser André Rousseau?—he had come here to observe.
He released her arm reluctantly. ‘I will be waiting outside for you in my carriage from midnight anyway, just in case you should change your mind...’
‘I cannot, monsieur.’ She cast a furtive glance towards the kitchen as the door swung open and Helene Rousseau strode back into the noisy tavern, her shrewd eyes narrowing as she saw Christian and Lisette were still standing together in conversation. ‘I must go.’ Lisette stepped hastily away from him. ‘For your own sake, monsieur, I advise you do not come here again,’ she added in a whisper.
Christian considered that warning some minutes later as he sat in his carriage on the way back to his house beside the Seine, and he could come to only one conclusion.
That the lovely Lisette was frightened of her aunt...
Chapter Two
Lisette went about the rest of her work in a daze following the Comte’s departure just minutes after their conversation came to an abrupt end.
In response to her warning, she hoped.
Although he had not appeared to be the sort of gentleman who would frighten easily.
As she was frightened.
The Comte de Saint-Cloud was perfectly correct in his concern for her well-being here, with the drunkards and bawds. Much as Helene might try to protect her.
But what else did the Comte have to offer her, besides supper and no doubt a seduction within his home; he might be wealthier and more highly born than the usual patrons of the Fleur de Lis, but he was no more to be trusted than the other men who came here, who would all willingly throw up her skirts and take her innocence, given the opportunity and the chance to escape from Helene’s sharp-eyed gaze.
The Comte might do it more gracefully, and no doubt in pleasanter surroundings, but he would still take what Lisette did not wish to give. Before walking away unconcernedly to rejoin others of his class and forgetting completely the young woman whom he had seduced. And ruined.
The fact that he had frequented such a tavern as this at all was suspect. And surely indication of his intention to find a woman he might take to bed for the night, before having one of his servants show her the door in the morning, when he had no further use for her?
Lisette knew that could be the only possible reason for such a fine and titled gentleman to so much as enter a lowly tavern such as this one.
And yet for just a few moments, a minute perhaps, something had burgeoned inside her chest—a temptation to accept his offer of joining him for a late supper—in the hope that he might offer to take her away from this lowly place, which she hated to her very soul.
* * *
‘You might as well stop mooning over the Comte,’ Helene sneered several hours later, after having thrown out the last of her drunken customers into the alleyway at the back of the tavern, before locking the door behind her. ‘He will not be returning here.’
Lisette looked at the older woman searchingly, easily noting the satisfaction in Helene’s expression. ‘How can you be so sure...?’
Hard blue eyes flashed a warning. ‘You will not question me as to my...methods, Lisette.’
Her alarm deepened. ‘I am sure Monsieur le Comte meant no harm when he spoke to me earlier.’
‘I believe it is past time you retired to your bedchamber, Lisette,’ Helene dismissed. ‘You have been most helpful this evening, but I do not think we will repeat the experience.’
‘But—’
‘Go to bed now, Lisette.’ The older woman snapped her impatience as a knock now sounded softly on the closed back door of the tavern.
Lisette bit back her next comment, that discreet knock on the door warning her that this was one of those nights when Helene was to have another of her meetings.
Clandestine meetings, with men—and women?—who either did not want to be seen frequenting the tavern or openly associating with Helene Rousseau. Or perhaps both? The Fleur de Lis and its customers were certainly not for the faint-hearted, or those members of society who should not even know such a woman as Helene Rousseau existed, let alone be calling upon her in the dark of night.
None of which helped to dispel Lisette’s concerns for the welfare of the Comte de Saint-Cloud.
She had learned these past weeks that Helene was a powerful woman in these shadowed alleyways of Paris, with a knowledge of most, if not all, of the thieves and murderers that frequented them. It would be the simplest thing in the world for the older woman to request the assistance—after silver had exchanged hands, of course—of any one of those cut-throats in her desire to ensure the Comte de Saint-Cloud did not return.
Could not return.
‘Certainly, Helene.’ She made a curtsy before taking a lit candle and hurrying up the stairs to her bedchamber, only to then pace the small room restlessly as she tried to decide what she should do next.
She really could not allow the Comte de Saint-Cloud to come to harm just because he had dared to speak with her.
She had heard the murmur of voices in the hallway outside some minutes ago, followed by a door closing, which meant that Helene would now be kept occupied with her late night callers. If Lisette was very quiet, she could move softly along the hallway and down the stairs, leave a window open downstairs at the back of the tavern ready for her to climb into upon her return, and then—
And then what?
The Comte had said his house was situated by the river, but just the thought of being out alone at night in Paris was enough to cause a quiver of fear to run the length of Lisette’s spine. These streets were unsafe for a lone woman in the daytime; at night she would be an easy ta
rget for much more than the thieves and bawds.
And the Comte de Saint-Cloud?
Her thoughts always came back to him, and the look of determination on Helene’s face when she had said he would not be returning to the tavern. Such certainty of purpose could surely mean only one thing? Nor did Lisette make the mistake of underestimating Helene’s ability to carry through with that purpose; many of the men who frequented the tavern, hard and callous men, were obviously in awe of the Fleur de Lis’ patroness.
Lisette could not bear to think of the handsome Comte’s lavender-coloured eyes closing forever.
Just as she could not continue to stay here in her bedchamber, acting the coward, when even now Helene’s cut-throats might be closing in for the kill.
Lisette’s spine straightened with a resolve she could not allow to waver as she pulled on her black bonnet and gathered up her black cloak—mourning clothes for the uncle she had never met—before quietly opening the door to her bedchamber and peering out to ensure that the hallway was empty. Assured it was so, she quietly slipped from the room and down the stairs. With any luck she would be able to find and visit the Comte’s home, issue a warning and return to the tavern before Helene was any the wiser.
If not...
Lisette did not care to think of what might happen if she was too late to warn Monsieur le Comte.
Or of Helene’s fury if Lisette did not return to the tavern before her absence was discovered.
* * *
Christian stood in the shadows of a doorway, a safe enough distance from the Fleur de Lis, but close enough that he was able to see the dozen or so gentlemen and two ladies, who had entered through the back door of that establishment during the past half an hour.
He was under no illusions as to the reason for their clandestine visit, knew that he must have stumbled upon one of the secret meetings of Helene Rousseau and her co-conspirators.
Stumbled, because Helene Rousseau was not the reason Christian had come back to the tavern tonight.
Christian Seaton: Duke of Danger Page 2