Wicked Becomes You(34)

“Right,” he said slowly.

Gwen swept up. “Mr. Ramsey,” she said. She was wearing a tiny pink rose tucked behind her ear, and another—he did a double take—in her décolletage.

Probably no one else would remark it, though. In her ears swung a pair of diamond eardrops so large that it was a wonder her lobes were not sagging to her shoulders. Their sale might have fed the populace of a small nation for a year.

“So,” he said. “Where shall we go, ladies? I placed a call to the Maison Dorée, and it seems we’re in luck: a cabinet particulier is available this evening.”

Gwen’s mouth pulled in disapproval. “How old-fashioned,” she said. “Can we not dine in public? I’ve no wish to be shut up alone in some stuffy little room.”

Elma flashed him a significant look, which he had no idea how to interpret. “But Gwen, dear!” she said. “The Maison Dorée is the finest restaurant on the Continent. It’s practically impossible to get reservations there. If Mr. Ramsey has been so kind—”

“It’s no trouble,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve connections at Le Lyon d’Or as well, if you’d prefer that. I know the man who fills some of their more arcane orders for spices.”

Gwen glanced past them, her eyes following a group of gentlemen in top hats and capes. “No,” she said decisively. “I’ve seen so many interesting-looking foreigners in the lobby. Let’s dine at the table d’hôte.”

And on this note, she casually brushed past Alex toward the dining room.

He turned, watching the roll of her hips with disbelief. Was she sashaying?

“Well, all right,” Elma said, and took Alex’s arm, towing him forward to catch up with her charge. “But do look for the Italians, Gwen. They are the best gentlemen to flirt with! I flirted with several when I did the grand tour as a girl. They’re ever so educational.”

And so it was that twenty minutes later, he sat at one of the long, communal tables in the hotel dining room, enduring the first course of excruciatingly average fare as he slowly suffocated in a cloud of toxic perfume. To the left, he had an excellent view of Gwen’s complicated chignon: she had turned away from him entirely, wholly engaged with the blond—Italian—lad at her left. Opposite sat two graying Germans who had introduced themselves as Austrians, probably to avoid spittle in their food; they were either deaf or melancholy, and kept their attention fixed on their plates. To the right, somewhere inside the noxious cloud of odor, sat Elma. Overhead, the clash of a dozen languages echoing off the gilded ceiling made the line of chandeliers tremble.

Alex rather envied those chandeliers. At least the air up there was free of the reek of Bouquet Impérial Russe.

“She’s looking well, isn’t she?” Elma still sounded nervous. “Mr. Beecham was staunchly opposed to this trip, but see how cheerful she seems!”

“Certainly,” he said dryly. Gwen seemed about as cheerful as one of those maniacal mechanized puppets that terrorized children at Madam Montesque’s House of Wonders. Meanwhile, the poor Italian looked as if he was being slowly beaten down by a hailstorm. What on earth was she saying to him? Probably a dizzying mix of compliments to his person and declarations regarding her own liberation. Yesterday I threw a napkin and broke a glass. Today I painted my face. Tomorrow, one never knows, I might spit on the pavement . . .

If she did, she would wipe it up afterward. Alex would place money on it.

“Mr. Beecham felt certain we shouldn’t humor her,” Elma said a little desperately. Dear God, she was coming closer. He averted his face for a long breath. “But I tell you, he has so little understanding for the heart of a woman. Last winter I thought I would die of melancholy, the weather was so dull. Not a spot of sun for weeks. But he wouldn’t even consider a holiday. ‘You can have card games in the conservatory,’ he told me. Well, for Gwen’s sake, I put my foot down this time. I told him, what harm can Paris do? Even if she runs across the viscount, he knows better than to approach her. And now you’re here. Why, we haven’t a thing to worry about! Do we?”

He refrained from comment. He saw a number of things to worry about. He had yet to receive a reply from the Peruvian minister. The woman he’d just asked to perform a discreet inquiry with regard to the house on Rue de Varenne was now telling him tales about her husband. And the vin ordinaire at this table tasted thicker than ox-blood.

This last might not have bothered him so much, had both women not been drinking with the enthusiasm of hardened sailors.