Last Chance for Paris

by Farmer, Merry

  “Lafarge must have found a way to stop their carriage and prevent them from getting here,” Louis said precisely what Solange was thinking.

  “He didn’t stop us, though, and we’re the important ones,” she said. Whichever of Lafarge’s henchmen had stopped the others must not have realized she and Louis had gone in a different direction.

  “Well, somebody has to stop something,” Roselyn said, tilting her chin up as though she would lead the front line of an army if she had to. “Where is Evangeline?”

  Roselyn marched deeper into the room, heading toward Evangeline, who stood near one of the ballroom’s massive fireplaces. Lafarge was with her, and even from a distance, it was clear that whatever their conversation was, Lafarge had the upper hand. Solange had never seen Lady Evangeline McGovern look so frightened in her life. Evangeline’s face was pale and her eyes were wide with horror. She clutched Lafarge’s sleeve and said something with a look of desperate pleading.

  “We need to do something to help her,” Solange said, tugging Louis deeper into the room.

  Their arrival drew attention, and guests stepped back to let them pass. That caused even more eyes to turn their way, including Lafarge’s. His face pinched with shock as he saw them, then hardened into a mask of hatred. He shook Evangeline off and strode not toward Solange and Louis, but to the front of the dais where the orchestra sat.

  “What is he doing?” Louis growled, pulling Solange to a stop in order to watch as Lafarge silenced the orchestra, then turned to address the room.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a booming voice. Every conversation stopped with unnatural speed, and the couples that had been dancing fled to the sides of the room. Lafarge held up his hands as if to either silence the whispers he’d created or to command that the heavens rain down on everyone present. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he repeated into the hush. “It is time that I reveal my purpose for calling you all here tonight.”

  “He didn’t call them, Roselyn and Evangeline did,” Solange said.

  “If he claims credit, it gives him more power,” Louis told her.

  “I have a tale for you,” Lafarge went on. “A tale of corruption and betrayal. A tale of conspiracy and treason. It is the story of the McGovern family and how they came to flee England or face ruin.”

  Gasps and murmurs filled the room. Lafarge’s expression turned downright wicked as he seemed to feed off of the fear he’d generated.

  “As we speak, my press is printing a special edition of Les Ragots, one that will titillate and horrify you,” he went on. “One that will expose every secret of the villainous McGovern family once and for all.”

  “I won’t stand for this,” Solange said, breaking away from Louis and cutting through the stunned and curious guests to make her way to the dais.

  “It is a tale that will cause you to lose sleep at night and wonder how evil like this has been allowed to—” Lafarge stopped dead the second he noticed Solange charging toward him. Irritation filled his expression, and he worked his mouth as though he’d tasted something sour. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded as Solange stepped up onto the dais beside him.

  Solange didn’t hesitate. She faced the panicked guests, standing tall, her head held high. “My name is Solange Kouassi Lafarge,” she announced. “This man seduced my mother, as I’m certain he has seduced or meddled with far too many of you or those you love. But his time has come to an end.”

  The undercurrent of murmuring stopped as the guests held their collective breath, glancing from Solange to Lafarge and back again.

  “What do you propose to do?” Lafarge addressed her as though she were an insignificant gnat. “Do you plan to tell them I am the devil? That they would be better served standing against me and bringing me down?” He paused, then faced the guests to say, “They all know that I have information regarding the lies, deceits, and affairs of every person here, and that I will make those secrets public without hesitation. How many of them will go down with me? Which one of you is willing to take the leap of self-destruction in order to condemn me?” He answered his own question by turning back to Solange and saying, “None of them.”

  The guests shifted uncomfortably, most of them looking around at their neighbors as if to see who looked the guiltiest and whose secrets might provide the most salacious gossip. The way they seemed to shrink in the face of Lafarge’s words turned Solange’s stomach. She should have known that few people would stand up to a man like Lafarge if it meant their own reputations would be damaged.

  “They don’t have to stand against you,” Louis said, moving forward from where he stood, watching Solange with deep admiration. “Not one of them needs to put themselves in jeopardy, because you have done that all on your own.”

  A ripple of excitement passed through the guests as Louis dodged through the crowd, making his way to the dais. A feeling of hope suddenly zipped through the air. Lafarge seemed to be unaffected, though. He merely stared at Louis as though he were a rat his housekeeper had failed to kill.

  “Enjoy your moment while you can, Sinclair,” Lafarge growled. “You’ll be dead before midnight.”

  Louis didn’t humor the man with a reply. He merely glared at him, then turned to face the guests. Without skipping a beat, he reached into his jacket and drew out the documents Solange had taken from his trophy room.

  “Monsieur Lafarge is guilty of political collusion, corruption, and treason,” he said, holding the papers up.

  For the first time, Lafarge looked uneasy. “Give me those,” he said, attempting to move closer to Louis.

  Solange stepped between the two men. She was no match for Lafarge’s strength, if he chose to use it, but he was no match for her anger or her will to bring him down.

  Louis went on. “These documents, and a great many more hiding away in Lafarge’s home, are clear proof that he has bribed and blackmailed his way into French politics. He is guilty of at least a dozen crimes against the republic and her allies. Not one of you needs to cower before the man in fear that your scandals will grace the pages of his magazine because the crimes he himself is guilty of far eclipse any other petty disgraces you may have committed.”

  “This is preposterous,” Lafarge said, growing more anxious by the second. “You have nothing. Give me those papers.”

  He tried to surge toward Louis, but Solange stopped him. She twisted to take just one of the letters she had stolen from the trophy room, then held it out so he could read it. “Do you see?” she asked. “Do you see what sort of proof we have of your sins?”

  Lafarge’s face lost all color as he scanned the letter in her hand. “This is nothing,” he said in a weak voice. “You cannot prove anything with this.”

  His expression told a different story.

  “Perhaps not with this alone, but with everything else I took from your blasted trophy room, I can.”

  She held her breath, hoping and praying Lafarge hadn’t taken inventory of his trophy room or even seen that she had discovered his documents. She had enough to condemn him, but if he believed she’d taken much, much more, everything that had to happen would be much easier.

  For a moment, the two of them stood face to face, frozen. Lafarge seemed to search her face for some clue that she was bluffing or that she didn’t have what he must have feared she had. She stared implacably back at him, willing him to challenge her, to give her even the tiniest excuse to use everything she had against him. The entire room watched the tableau in silence.

  Lafarge cracked. Whatever inner debate he had ended with him leaping off the stage with sudden, jerky movements and pushing his way through the crowd of guests toward the door.

  “Go after him,” Louis shouted, jumping off the stage as well, Solange right behind him.

  The confused guests burst into movement, but none of it was helpful to Solange and Louis’s pursuit. They impeded their progress as they followed Lafarge out of the ballroom and into the hall.

  “You cannot prove a
nything,” Lafarge shouted over his shoulder as Louis and Solange began to catch up to him in the hall. He may have considered himself powerful and cunning, but he was already winded and flagging after a short chase.

  “We can prove everything,” Solange shouted as the distance between them shortened. “I saw what you have in your trophy room.”

  “I will ruin all of you,” Lafarge screamed as he bolted for the front door.

  The footmen attending the doors were taken by surprise and rushed to open them wide without thinking. Solange cursed under her breath, but knew Lafarge didn’t have anywhere to go once he burst out into the night. It was a stroke of pure luck that a carriage parked at the bottom of the long, marble stairs to the drive was, at that moment, in the process of letting out its passengers—Dorothy, Damien, Lord Reith, and Lord Gregory. Lord Lytton and Miss Sewett weren’t far behind.

  “Lafarge,” Lord Reith shouted, taking a step toward the stairs as Lafarge dashed through the doors.

  Lafarge stumbled in shock, his eyes going wide. His ankle twisted, and he tumbled over the top stair. Solange watched, as though time slowed down to a snail’s pace, as Lafarge spilled forward, his body twisting, then falling head over heels down the stairs. Halfway down, there was a sick crunch and a snap as he continued to roll and thump all the way to the gravel drive.

  Once he landed, splayed on his back, his neck bent at an unnatural angle, his eyes staring vacantly up at the starry sky, everything went silent. Solange and Louis skidded to a halt at the top of the stairs as Lord Reith and the others rushed forward, then stopped in a half circle around Lafarge. The man was clearly dead. Blood stained the pale gravel under his head, but it was the disturbing angle of his head that made it clear he’d broken his neck.

  Solange could barely move. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps. “He’s dead,” she breathed at last. “It’s over.”

  Beside her, Louis shook his head. “It’s not over,” he insisted, looping his arm through Solange’s and drawing her down the stairs. “You heard him. His press is in the process of printing an issue exposing the McGovern’s secrets. Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean he can’t still ruin the family.”

  “You’re right,” Lord Reith agreed grimly as they reached the gravel drive. “We have to go back into Paris and destroy the press.”

  “We have to destroy everything,” Solange agreed. “Everything in that trophy room. If any of that information makes it into public hands, lives will be ruined.”

  “Come on,” Lord Reith said, gesturing for them to climb into the carriage, whose driver looked as though he were having the adventure of a lifetime.

  “I’m coming too,” Dorothy said, whipping back to jump into the carriage after Solange.

  “You should stay here,” Lord Reith told her with a scowl. “This will be too dangerous for you.”

  “It’s my family,” Dorothy insisted. “I refuse to sit idly by while they’re in peril.”

  “Go on,” Damien said as he and Sebastian moved closer to Lafarge’s body. “We’ll take care of this mess. Do what needs to be done and get home soon.”

  Chapter 10

  The carriage ride back into Paris felt interminable to Louis. As they’d sped away from the Château de Saint-Sottises, with Lafarge’s body still warm at the base of the stairs and the threat of ruin hanging over them all, it was easy to imagine destroying the monster Lafarge had built. But by the time they crossed into the city and battled Parisian traffic on their way to Lafarge’s home and press, the realities of what it would take to destroy what needed destroying weighed down on him.

  “All it will take is one false move and we will be as criminal as Lafarge is,” he spoke his thoughts aloud as they turned down the side street off the Champs-Élysées.

  “Was,” Solange corrected him. “Lafarge is not anything anymore.” Her face was a mask of determination in the lamplight that filtered into the closed carriage. “We cannot let him continue his destruction from beyond the grave.”

  Louis exhaled and scrubbed a hand over his face. He knew what had to be done, but the task seemed impossible.

  It seemed even more impossible when the carriage came to a stop far away from Lafarge’s house. They waited for several minutes, but didn’t move on.

  Louis exchanged a frustrated glance with Solange, then opened the door, stepping out into the cool night. “What seems to be the problem?” he asked.

  He had his answer before the driver turned to acknowledge the question from his perch on the seat above. The street in front of them was clogged with carriages and people. All of them faced the far end of the street, gasping and whispering in wonderment as they stared at something in the distance.

  Louis could smell what was wrong before he saw the pillar of smoke billowing up into the air.

  “There’s a fire, sir,” the driver told him, then gazed back at the smoke.

  “Could it be Lafarge’s house?” Solange asked as she climbed out of the carriage to join Louis.

  “It must be,” Louis said. He shoved a hand through his hair, gaping as the possibility that they wouldn’t have to lift a finger to destroy Lafarge’s legacy hit him. “Someone else must have acted before we could. Lafarge has a litany of enemies, after all. Perhaps one of them decided to take advantage of his attendance at the ball to—”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish his thought. Solange shot forward, her face a mask of fury. She pushed her way through the watching crowd, moving toward Lafarge’s house as fast as she could.

  “Solange, what are you doing?” Louis bounded after her.

  The crowd seemed far less likely to let a large man slip between them than a lithe woman. Louis was faster, but Solange was able to keep just ahead of him. She darted on with single-minded focus, and Louis followed, until they reached the edge of the crowd and the spectacle of the burning building.

  The fire couldn’t have started very much before they’d arrived. There was no fire brigade on hand, and only the back part of the building, the location of the press and offices of Les Ragots, seemed to be alight. Flames could be seen flickering through the shattered windows of the office, and black smoke curled up from the windows one floor higher. The front of the building, where the entrance to Lafarge’s house stood, seemed untouched.

  Solange hesitated for only a moment before rushing toward the front door, which stood open.

  “Solange, no!” Louis called, racing after her. “Are you mad?”

  He caught up with her at the front door, just as one of the footmen Louis had spotted briefly that morning fled, a bundle under his arm and a shifty look in his eyes, as though his only thoughts were to get away from the building as fast as possible and to forget he ever lived there.

  Solange spun to face Louis in the doorway. “There are things inside,” she explained breathlessly, her eyes wide. “Papers and documents. Proof. And other things.” She grabbed his arms. “I saw your mother’s brooch in there.”

  Something snapped in Louis’s chest. Years of pain boiled to the surface, sending good sense flying. “I will not let it burn,” he said, then shot into the house.

  Solange was by his side in a heartbeat, sprinting with him through the dim house. Only half of the lamps were lit and smoke seeped up through the floorboards, lending an eerie air to the already unsettling home. Solange knew exactly where she was going, though, and took the lead from Louis, skidding around the corner to the hall that would lead them to the room where she’d been held prisoner.

  It was a blessing that the door was still unlocked. Lafarge must not have had time to investigate what had gone on there and his henchmen had likely been too busy with other things to think about closing up the room again. Solange threw open the door and darted straight toward a low table between two sofas that was covered with scattered papers. She gathered them into a large, leather ledger.

  Louis was struck dumb as he entered the room. Every inch and corner was stuffed full of art, objects, and cabinets. It was as if he�
�d stepped into a museum of Lafarge’s villainy. He could have spent hours perusing the glass cabinets, studying the bits and pieces that Lafarge had collected, likely over a lifetime.

  “Don’t just stand there,” Solange shouted at him. “Your mother’s brooch is in that cabinet.” She pointed to one of the cabinets against the wall.

  Louis clenched his jaw and strode across the smoky space to the cabinet in question. When he spotted his mother’s brooch and her portrait inside, it was as though he had been punched in the gut. A thousand memories of his mother’s distress, the times he had discovered her weeping in secret or shaking in fear rushed back to him. He couldn’t get the image of the way she’d looked when he’d discovered her lifeless body, still clutching the vial of poison she’d taken in one hand and the sinister letter from Lafarge in the other, out of his mind. If he could have murdered Lafarge all over again, he would have.

  Those thoughts were cut short as a portion of the floor at the far end of the sofas cracked and then caved in. Flames shot up so fast that Solange screamed.

  Louis whipped toward her, love for what he had outweighing love for what he’d lost. “We have to leave, now,” he shouted, stepping away from the cabinet and covering his mouth with his sleeve as he did.

  “The brooch,” Solange coughed, taking the ledger she’d stuffed and shrinking away from the flames licking up through the floor. “Get the brooch.”

  Louis didn’t care about the brooch. The fact shocked him, considering how long he’d fought to get it back. He just wanted Solange to be safe. But she had the look of a woman who wouldn’t budge unless he did as she asked. So he grabbed a statuette of Venus from its pedestal beside the cabinet and broke the cabinet’s glass. Shards cut his hand, but he ignored them as he closed his hand around the brooch and yanked it free.

  A section of the floor between the two of them cracked, then gave way to flames.

  “Run!” he shouted to Solange, pointing to the door with his bloody hand gripping the brooch.

  For once, she did as she was told. He followed her, but had to dodge flames and furniture to find a clear path to the door. The floor snapped ominously beneath his feet as he grew closer to the door, and if he hadn’t leapt for the hallway, it would have disappeared beneath his feet, plunging him into flames.