Lady Chance: A Traditional Regency Romance (Regency Ladies in Distress Series Book 2) by Shannon Donnelly

Author:Shannon Donnelly [Donnelly, Shannon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: regency, Shannon Donnelly, regency england, Romance, Paris 1814
ISBN: 9780985026592
Publisher: Cielito Lindo Press
Published: 2016-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jules glanced again at the address in his hand. He had been to the theater last night and had spent most of the early hours sipping cognac with l’Odeon’s manager. Strong drink and no sleep did not make for the best start to a day. A faint headache throbbed behind his temples. However, he had yet another address in his hands for one Eugene Thury, maker of costumes and perhaps a fellow with information to trade.

Last night, leaning forward over his drink, his eyes bright, the manager had laid a finger alongside his nose. “Not his home, mind. No. That Thury, he keeps one respectable house and one that is more secret. This address I have is where he keeps his woman. Not many know of her.”

Jules had pushed forward gold coins and had pocketed the hastily scribbled address. He glanced around him once more now. The hairs lifted on the back of his neck. He did not like this.

The address had taken him to the Left Bank and the rue Cassette. He could see Saint-Joseph-des-Carmes, now a church once again, but a building with far too bloody a history. During the September Massacres, the mob had killed a hundred or more priests within the stone structure. Jules also knew it had served as one of the worst prisons for the enemies of the Revolution, infamous for its squalor and desperate couplings. Even now, a woman would not be sent to the guillotine if she was thought to be with child—and so the Revolution had spawned many orphans from women who choose the hope of a few more months of life by finding relief in any man’s arms for a few nights.

Saint-Joseph-des-Carmes stood peaceful again, a home for the bones of the martyrs who had died on its steps. Jules thought the stark white stones still stank of hopeless misery.

He started down the mist-shrouded street, his steps slow and wary. Why would a costumer keep a mistress in so inconvenient a local? Why not house her close to the theater? And why had this address not come into the hands of the Black Cabinet before this? It seemed that he kept finding new questions, not answers. The hem of his greatcoat swirled around his ankles. He put one hand into a pocket, closed his fingers around a pistol, and glanced behind him.

Down the rue de Vaugirard lay the Jardin du Luxembourg, lovely gardens still, even if somewhat trampled these days by soldiers and tents. Bonaparte had remade the Luxembourg Palace into the Palais du Consulate. Jules had visited the palace before, and the Petit Luxembourg, a quaint building to the west of the main palace. Even with all the changes, and even with Prussians camped on the grounds, the French Senate was still to meet there. Jules frowned, wondering if the proximity to that political body had anything to do with this tailor he sought.

Stopping before a stone building, he checked the small brass numbers next to the door. No lights glinted from behind the shuttered windows.

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