Elizabeth Boyle by Brazen Trilogy

Author:Brazen Trilogy
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-10-10T04:09:13+00:00

Chapter 10

During their ride to the Tuileries Palace, Lily found Webb’s strained silence a relief. She’d expected him to lecture her the entire route about her deliberate dereliction from his instructions.

Blend in. Be nondescript. Lily couldn’t think of anything more foolish. If she wanted to gain control of the de Chevenoy house and get rid of the guards and strictures, she needed to prove she was in control.

And that meant charming Bonaparte.

As her mother had always told her and Sophia, the best defense in the world of men was a fast and underhanded offense. This gown, embellished with the de Chevenoy diamonds, was the best kind of subterfuge she could muster. Though it was freezing, she thought, tugging the lap blanket higher.

Besides, after Troussebois had left, Webb had fled out of the de Chevenoy house. She couldn’t help but wonder whether his excuse about seeing to his own lodgings wasn’t just that, an excuse for him to get away from her.

The carriage ride to the Tuderies Palace, where Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul and his wife Josephine, resided, turned out to be a short distance away, but in that time, Lily once again saw the tremendous price Paris had paid during the past ten years of revolution.

Their carriage rolled by one tumbledown house after another in a neighborhood that had once been the glory of Paris. For blocks she had yet to see a window without broken frames or boards to cover the gaping scars. Remnants and tatters of once-fine draperies flapped softly in the wind. Ornately carved facades and decorated doorways bore the ugly pockmarks of chisels where the thieves had come after …

After the owners had lost their heads, she realized.

Gone were the tree-lined boulevards she’d often recalled when she’d thought of her homeland. Heaped amongst the chopped stumps of the once-proud poplars and birch lay piles of garbage, the odor of sewage and rotting remains, filling the air with their ripe and stagnant perfume.

As the carriage took a terrible bounce over a gaping hole in the pavement, the driver tossed down an apology.

Gone was the bright and beautiful Paris of her childhood. Left in its place, she found a broken and aged crone.

“Is the entire city like this?” she asked.

Webb nodded. “Like you saw when we drove in. Though the First Consul has promised change.”

She shook her head and drew back from the window. Could anyone return Paris to the jeweled city she remembered and loved?

But all of this made the little house on the Rue du Renard just that much more remarkable.

How had Henri saved his home and his head?

Slowly the driver picked his way through the city and finally stopped the carriage before the entranceway to the palace. A footman opened the door and assisted her down. As Webb alighted, he paused, glancing around the yard.

“Is something wrong?” she whispered, shivering in the cold and wrapping her cashmere shawl tighter around her shoulders.

He shook his head. “There’s been quite a few changes since I was here last.

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