***
Sebastian woke as usual with a painfully hard shaft and a soft, feminine body filling his arms. He looked around the room and realized he was in his library, but why he was here was a mystery.
Even more curious was the fact that Sophie was curled against him, also sleeping. He enjoyed the feel of her and even the dull ache of his shaft didn’t diminish the beauty of the moment.
He remembered drinking several glasses of brandy and then falling on the sofa to sleep. Then he remembered her coming into the room in an almost transparent shift and he had at first thought she was a ghost.
It all came back to him. She had come towards him and touched his face. He had asked her to stay with him. He moved his hands along the shift’s hem and his fingers felt the silken flesh of her calf, knee and thigh. She moaned slightly in sleep and shifted, pressing her bottom into him.
He closed his eyes. How far could he go? How far would he go? Not far. She wouldn’t give herself to him. He already knew that. All that he felt for her was not reciprocated.
He only had one hand available as his other hand was underneath her head.
He moved his hand over her left thigh, up along her hip and over her breasts. She sighed before he pressed a hot kiss on her neck and knew he should stop. She sighed and turned to face him as Sebastian kissed her lips lightly and sat up.
He adjusted his clothing and tried not to grind his teeth in frustration. It was becoming more and more difficult to be in her company and not ravish her.
“Come, Sophie. Let’s dress for breakfast,” he told his sleepy wife.
***
Alain Vennard slammed his way into his small office in the basement of the large building which housed numerous officials, including his commissioners and the other inspectors. His tiny windowless office space did little to cheer his mood. The small mahogany desk and chair and piles of papers littered around the office only reinforced how far he still had to go to achieve his goals.
He had not been surprised by the commissioner’s desire to drop everything to do with the Gauvreau family. As an older man used to taking bribes and becoming comfortable with his position, he would not want anything to threaten what he had achieved. He liked his easy position of doing very little and having his inspectors do all the work. Alain was the opposite.
Alain was ambitious and absolutely comfortable with bringing the upper classes to heel. In fact, his plan—which included Sophie Gauvreau—would make it certain that the upper classes would not receive any special favors. He was not interested in bribes or money, only power.
The candle on his desk offered scant lighting as he sifted through the papers that lay scattered. He noticed the mail gathered at the edge of his desk; he had not opened any for several days. He separated the letters into two piles that he deemed important and not important.
At the bottom of the pile was a small envelope with an elaborate red wax seal. The envelope was addressed to him in an elegant handwriting and he opened it carefully. As he read the simple contents, he smiled.
He laid the small card on his desk and smiled even broader. He would not stop looking at the Gauvreau family. Indeed, his main suspect had just given him the key to opening the door to her true identity and placing his plan in motion.
***
He had watched the printer for two days and discovered all he needed to know. The man’s habits were few and his workday was extremely regimented and precise.
He worked alone, with only a young boy whom Alain deemed to be the printer’s apprentice. The apprentice followed the printer around like a shadow and performed his job tasks as required. They left the shop together and returned together.
They would often begin their work in the afternoon and work through the night to have their pamphlets printed and ready for distribution the following morning. Alain stood in the small alleyway opposite the shop, smoking his pipe and watching the two printers at work.
The older man was meticulous as he arranged the type to form the words and sentences that would ultimately become the pamphlet. The type was then put into a wooden tray and the tray placed onto a table. An iron frame locked the tray into place.
He then watched the younger man take two wood-handled, wool-stuffed, leather-covered ink balls and literally beat the ink into the metal type. It seemed like tedious work, but the young man kept at it while the printer looked on.
Damp paper was attached to a leather-covered frame and then moved under a block of wood. The printer pulled the bar to lower the wood so that the type would make an impression on the paper. It was interesting to watch but Alain surmised that if he spent his life doing this, it might become quite boring.
The two worked late into the night and by near sunrise, there was a large stack of papers hung by pegs on a string drying inside the little shop. These pamphlets would be distributed by the younger man that morning as the older man slept the day away in his room above the shop.