He gave a lazy shrug now, again without turning to look at the woman behind him. ‘All of the ladies working here are very pretty, madame.’ Once again he continued the conversation in French.
‘But you have eyes for only one,’ the woman rasped in the same language.
‘Surely a gentleman is allowed to look, madame?’
‘One such as you does not just look for long,’ she said scornfully.
Christian was every inch the gentleman, known amongst English society for his charm and evenness of temper; indeed, he had long and deliberately nurtured that belief. But that was not to say that he did not have a temper, because he most certainly did; he simply chose to reveal it only to those who were deserving of it and on the occasions when it was most warranted.
But whether the French Comte de Saint-Cloud or the English Duke of Sutherland, he was obviously a gentleman, and this woman’s insults and overfamiliarity were deserving of such a set-down. ‘I take exception to your remark, madame.’ Christian’s tone was icy-cold, something that those who knew him well would have known to beware of.
Whatever the woman standing behind him knew of him, she obviously did not know the nature of him at all.
At least it was to be hoped that she did not...
‘One has only to look at the way you are dressed, at you, to know you are nothing but a rake and a libertine. Coureur!’ she added disgustedly.
While it might be safer for this woman to believe Christian was a rake, and the ‘womaniser’ she had just spat at him, than for her to have any doubts as to his identity as the Comte de Saint-Cloud, he still took exception to the insult. ‘On what grounds do you base such an accusation, madame?’ His tone had grown even chillier.
‘On the grounds that you have been undressing my...niece with your eyes for this past hour, monsieur!’ she came back disgustedly.
Her niece?
The beautiful girl, Lisette, was the niece of the woman standing behind him with a pistol pressed against his spine? Surely that claim did not make sense unless—
Unless...?
Very aware of that pistol at his back, Christian carefully sat forward, his movements measured as he turned just as slowly to face his accuser. His brows rose slightly as he instantly recognised her as being none other than Helene Rousseau, the owner of this Parisian tavern.
The very same woman who was both the reason for his clandestine visit to Paris and for his presence in the Fleur de Lis tavern this evening.
Helene Rousseau was the older sister of André Rousseau, the man known to have been a French spy during the year he had spent in England as tutor to a young English gentleman.
A year during which André Rousseau had also gathered together a ring of treasonous co-conspirators amongst the servants of the English aristocracy, as well as some high-ranking members of that society itself. Their aim had been to assassinate England’s Prince Regent, as well as the other heads of the Alliance, and so throw those countries into a state of chaos and confusion, allowing Napoleon, newly escaped from his incarceration on Elba, to march triumphantly back into Paris unopposed.
Christian had been one of the agents for the Crown who had managed to foil that assassination plot on Prinny. But not before André Rousseau lay dead in the street outside this very tavern, killed by the hand of one of Christian’s closest friends.
Christian was in Paris now because it was suspected that Rousseau’s sister had taken over as head of that resistance movement following the death of her brother. That she and her cohorts were still determined to undermine the English government, whilst working with those co-conspirators in England, by fair means or foul—and their methods had been very foul indeed—to find a way of releasing the Corsican upstart for a second time.
Indeed Christian, and several of his friends, had only days ago prevented news of the date and destination of Napoleon’s second incarceration from being revealed, when it was believed that a second attempt would have been made to effect the Corsican’s escape.
Nowhere in Christian’s information on Helene Rousseau had there ever been mention of her having a niece.
The same young and beautiful woman whom Christian had been admiring for this past hour or more...
A young and beautiful woman who wore black because she was in mourning for her dead father, the French spy André Rousseau? As far as Christian was aware, Helene Rousseau had no other siblings.
His eyes narrowed on the Frenchwoman. Also dressed in black out of respect for her dead brother? ‘I apologise if I have caused you any offence, madame.’ He gave a courtly bow as he stood up. ‘I assure you I meant none.’
Helene Rousseau was a woman of about forty, tall and voluptuous where her niece was tiny and slender, and the older woman had only a touch of red in her blonde hair; surely Christian could be forgiven for not having previously made the connection between an aunt and niece who were so different in appearance?