LITMIR.BIZ

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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 target 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.

      He had returned briefly to his house by the Seine after leaving the tavern earlier, going inside to his bedchamber so that he might change into dark clothing, before going out again. He had ordered his groom to wait with the carriage several streets away from the Fleur de Lis, before wrapping his dark cloak about him to move stealthily through the pungent and filthy alleyways to the doorway across and down the street from the tavern.

      The tavern was in darkness apart from a single candle burning in one of the bedchambers above, which, from the slightness of the silhouette of a person he could see pacing back and forth past the curtained window, might possibly be the bedchamber of the lovely Lisette.

      When even that candle was extinguished just minutes later, the tavern was left in complete darkness.

      And Christian with a feeling of disappointment.

      It had been too much to hope for, of course, that Lisette would change her mind and join him for a late supper. She did not know him, nor did she seem the type of young lady who would sneak out of her aunt’s home in the middle of the night with the intention of dining alone with a gentleman. Even without her eagle-eyed aunt acting as her protector.

      That look of innocence, and the tears that had shone in those huge blue eyes earlier when Lisette had told him she had ‘nowhere else to go’, could all be an act, of course. Nothing more than the clever machinations of an innocent-looking whore in search of a rich protector. Christian was sure he would not be the first gentleman to fall for such an act.

      Yet there had been a sincerity to Lisette Duprée. An indication, perhaps, that her innocence might be genuine.

      And Christian could just be the biggest fool in Paris for giving that young woman so much as a second thought. Indeed, Helene Rousseau’s warning earlier, in regard to his staying away from her niece, might all be part of the ruse to pique and hold his interest, rather than the opposite.

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