Rendezvous in Paris by Farmer Merry

Author:Farmer, Merry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Alarm rushed through Damien so fiercely that the edges of his vision blackened for a moment. He fought through the wave of fear at the consequences that could befall him and Sebastian if a photograph had been taken. But no, the camera lay smashed on the floor.

He lunged forward, picking up the cracked and splintered box as Sebastian dashed to the door and thrust his head and shoulders into the dark on the other side.

“It looks like a servants’ corridor,” Sebastian said. “We need to catch whoever tried to take our picture.”

“Wait.” Damien stopped him with an outstretched hand, still focused on the camera itself. “Whoever it was, they didn’t actually manage to get our picture. The camera is broken and the film is still inside.”

Sebastian stepped back into the room from the corridor and flew to Damien, taking the camera from him. With shaking hands, he pried the camera apart and ripped the film out to ruin it. His eyes held the haunted look of a man who knew just how much damage a candid photograph could do. Such a photograph was the reason Sebastian was in Paris instead of London, where he belonged.

Damien’s chest squeezed at the intensity of pain in Sebastian’s pale face. He reached out and rested a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. “It’s all right. Whoever it was didn’t get anything.”

“They got everything,” Sebastian hissed, glancing up to meet Damien’s eyes with a hollow look. “They got my life, my dignity, my future. One evil trick on Fordyce’s part and everything I was and everything I had was gone.”

Damien’s heart went out to Sebastian and he swayed closer, closing his arms protectively around him. “I’m sorry,” he said. There weren’t any other words. Nothing he could say would be adequate for everything Sebastian had lost.

Sebastian stayed in their embrace for a few more seconds before pulling back. “We have to go after whoever did this,” he said, handing the camera back to Damien and launching back toward the servants’ corridor.

Damien hesitated for only a moment before dropping the camera. It broke further with a satisfying crunch. He then started after Sebastian, catching up and keeping close on his heels.

The corridor ran between two of the grand parlors before reaching an intersection. Sebastian paused where the other corridor intersected the one they had followed, searching in all directions. Damien paused to search with him, but right away, he could tell it would be impossible to determine which way whoever had taken the photograph had gone.

“This way.” Sebastian took off to the left, and Damien followed him. “I’m reasonably certain the servants’ stairs is this way.”

He was right, but finding and descending the servants’ stairs to the vast downstairs warren of rooms did nothing to aid their search. The palace’s extensive staff stared at them, bowing or bobbing curtsies with their arms full of everything from food to chamber pots to decorations from the night before.

“He could be anywhere,” Damien murmured as Sebastian came to a stop

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